Pastoral approach to the African Christian woman affected by grief due to the loss of her spouse

Abstract

The focus of this study is on the pastorate to the African Christian widow affected by the loss of her spouse. The African Christian widow is believed to be in a disposition as she may be torn between African beliefs and cultural practices and Christian values regarding death during the grieving process. In this regard, it is suspected that cultural prescripts can negatively influence the grieving process from a Christian perspective, causing a complicated grieving process. This creates particular challenges for pastoral counselling which usually approaches pastoral challenges from a purely Christian, and mostly, Western perspective. This study has therefore attempted to develop a pastoral approach that is cognisant of the African Christian widow‟s disposition by investigating African beliefs and practices surrounding death and mourning within the framework of a normal grieving process. In addressing this problem the study attempted to accomplish the following objectives: •To describe the unique position of the African Christian woman against the background of the African worldview and culture. •To describe the concepts of death and dying within the African context. •To identify and describe some of the rituals associated with grieving within the African context. To describe pastoral care and to identify some of the perceived challenges for Christian African women during the grieving process. •To design a Biblical based theory for the pastorate to the African Christian widow. •To propose a conceptual framework for the pastorate to the African Christian widow affected by grief due to the loss of her spouse. As the study's main aim was to contribute to the field of practical theology and pastoral care, the interpretive model of Osmer was applied in a literature based approach. Another important aim was to contribute to the growing corpus of literature on contextualised pastoral care which is much needed within the African context. In this way it hopes to make a contribution to a pastoral approach which is cognisant of the African worldview and culture while is at the same time congruent with the Bible as the Word of God.